


This Battlefield

by Tridraconeus



Category: Paladins: Champions Of The Realm (Video Game)
Genre: Aggressive Befriending, Gen, Healing, Mercy - Freeform, Monks, War, bandits, magistrate knights
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 09:52:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14830059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus
Summary: When the armor is gone, they're all only men. Hurt. Bleeding. Dying. Jenos can see that even if his own monks can't, and when the Magistrate certainly won't.





	1. This Battlefield

**Author's Note:**

> It's about TIME I started inflicting my OCs on the Paladins fandom. Short snippets of two sides, finding peace, mercy where it shouldn't be, and gods amongst men.

The battlefield is empty but for the corpses. Jenos does not delight in slaughter; he does not go as far as to wish the enemy's losses were not so steep, but he allows himself a moment to mourn the dead. They are soldiers. This is war. Up on the Peak his monks are shouldering the task of rebuilding what was destroyed by pounding streaks of missiles and bombs.

He offered his help. They genteelly refused, and so he left the Peak to reflect. When time has passed and they begin to shift the heavy pillars of stone, he will offer his help again and hopes that they accept. Sometimes he thinks they have forgotten who built the Monastery to begin with. Tau-Kor is his, as much as the stars and galaxies are his. 

He drifts over the plain and reflects. He has seen many wars. In this one he has been too intimately involved to think neutrally of it. 

A body amongst the others shifts. He'd died-- or hadn't-- still holding his weapon, cut down in a final, honorable charge. He is clad in the characteristic red and gold armor of the Magistrate and Lian's forces and coated in a thin slick of blood. Jenos drifts closer to watch him claw his way out from under another body pinning him. Agony radiates in waves; Jenos barely catches the flicker of an astral mark settling on the boy like a shroud but even as he takes it back lethal internal wounds heal up. The withdrawal of the mark and the new surges of pain _can’t_ feel good-- the boy wails. He throws his head back and Jenos sees that his face is coated in blood and dirt, down his right side is a fresh wound that cleaves down his cheekbone and through his lips and pulls them down into what will heal into a permanent half-frown. He heaves himself up onto his hands-- his legs trail weakly behind him, kicking the body formerly on top of him behind him now, out of the way-- and his hand clutches his blade. He knows his enemy. 

“The battle is over. Be still,” Jenos calls across the stretch. The boy doesn't still. He pulls his legs underneath him until he's in a rough semblance of a kneel, but he's far too shaky to make it to his feet. “Be still,” Jenos repeats, firmer. 

The boy stills. His shoulders tremble. He looks up at Jenos in a sharp and jerky motion. There's simmering anger in his eyes. It's earnest, determined and righteous, the eyes of one just realizing he has been abandoned by those he has served so faithfully. Jenos cannot help but be sickeningly interested to note that even though he knows the situation is hopeless, he intends to go down fighting. _As if_. He's been conditioned to believe in what he's been told, to fight for what he believes in, and to take death over dishonor. His lip curls and pulls open the wound, blood dripping sluggishly down his chin and caking his lips, flecking his teeth. 

“Are you going to kill me?”

“You are an enduring creature,” Jenos muses. Praises. “No.” 

The fire flickers but does not die. The boy is beaten _down_ , but not beaten, even as he sees the truth in what Jenos says. He's unused to mercy that doesn't come drenched in shame.

Jenos doesn’t see any point in sticking around. He’ll either survive (which is likely) or not (which is just as likely), and it would be a waste of time to wait around and see which one it is.

Jenos has the feeling he’ll end up at the Peak anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Healing, in a literal sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MOAR OCs MOREEEEE

“You're going to live,” the man warns him. His eyes are covered by a blindfold, blue with gold edging. It's not the colors of the Magistrate so Sher stiffens up. It makes his head ache more sharply and the man waves his hand, makes a scooping motion and brings it into a fist, and the pain fades. Exhaustion replaces it. He feels heavily drugged but he doesn't _feel_ heavily drugged, the pain is softened and muzzied but his thoughts rush just as frantic and sharp as they should. “Please don't struggle,” the man continues, and what Sher originally interpreted as a passionless tone presents itself now as quiet and low to avoid aggravating Sher's aching head.

“What are you doing?” Sher doesn't know why he's asking. The man doesn't seem oppositional and it's pretty clear he holds little to no ill will toward Sher, even though he's so recently ago helped lay siege to the monastery whose colors he wears.

“I'm healing you,” he responds-- and how can he be healing him without setting a hand on him-- and Sher _huh_ s his understanding. The man doesn't seem reticent at all, happy to be in a conversation, so Sher continues. His voice is raspy and terrible. He'd been screaming?

“Why?” 

The man tilts his head. Sher doesn't know where to look without eye contact and so looks at the man's hand instead. Tiny stars swirl around it and nuzzle against, between his fingers like affectionate puppies. “You were left for dead.” 

“I'm an enemy,” Sher replies, argues, and doesn't know why. If the man stops whatever he's doing he knows the pain will rush back. The man settles back and looks up-- angles his head up. He surely can't see anything past the blindfold.

“I have been down here for so long without feeling life. Finding you was a blessing.” 

Sher leans his head back again. It's spinning. “What were you doing down here before, then?” 

The man shrugs. His voice stays low and neutral. “Digging graves, mostly.” 

Sher abruptly thinks of this man in his blindfold and blue sashes digging graves. He thinks of an army of dead men lined up to be buried. He, abruptly, notices that the back of his head hurts like he's been dragged, and wonders if he was destined for the grave until it was noticed he wasn't dead. 

“You're too gentle for a battlefield,” he says stupidly, dazedly, and the man smiles. He lowers his hand like he's thinking of touching Sher's cheek but appears to think better of it moments later and simply flicks his fingers again. Numb warmth pulses through Sher's body. 

“I've found myself in one, and in a war.” 

Sher combs his mind and can't think of a reply. What can he say to that? It’s kind of his fault. Kind of. He didn’t want to go to war, and he doubts the monks appreciated having a war brought to them.

“Try standing up,” the man says, breaking his thought. He doesn’t use his hands to stand up, Sher notices, just tucks his legs under him and stands up like he’s been pulled by the back of his neck. It looks graceful and unnatural in equal measure. He holds out a hand. How does he know where Sher is? How can he see? That question will plague him, at least until he finds something else to think about.

“Okay.”

It doesn’t hurt. His muscles are sore with disuse, like he’s simply had a very long sleep instead of the ordeal of the past few days. When he reaches his feet he dusts off his legs and back with his hands, searching for blood past the rips and tears of his uniform and finding only dried, pebbly crystals.

“…what now?”

 _Void,_ why’s he asking? The monk doesn’t get to decide his life for him and he’s not a prisoner, he doesn’t think.

“You could try to find the army.” His voice is carefully neutral, like he doesn’t care, but there’s no blame either and Sher is pathetically grateful for that. “Or you could come back with me. We need help rebuilding.”

“Why did you save me?” It seems disconnected but they both can tell the real question. Sher feels the sudden urge to look away and break an eye contact that isn’t there. The man’s turned in his general direction and he feels the cool press of astral energy clinging to him.

“A life is a life. It doesn’t matter what side you’re on.” The man cracks a smile, head ducking briefly. “And I don’t think you’re going to attack me now.”

 _Void_. He’s right. Sher sighs. “Void,” he says aloud. “Alright. I owe you that much.”


	3. Deathlessness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He did end up at the Peak. He left most of himself on the battlefield.

He woke up expecting pain. There was nothing of the sort, only a dull buzzing hum in his bones. Around him, walls rose high, carved out of the mountain itself and painted alabaster. High windows let in streaks of light; it was midday, he guessed. 

He had to be in the monastery. The last thing he remembered before passing out was staring at his own face, an unrecognizable mess of blood, in one of the wells. 

Evidently he hadn't been killed as an intruder. The thought that he'd been watched dragging himself, broken and ruined, through the paths of the peak made his shoulders prickle uncomfortably.

But he was here, and not dead. 

Movement caught his eye. One of the doors opened and shut just as quietly, a man skirting close to the wall before crossing over to the bunk he was in.

“You're awake,” he ventured. He was wearing the characteristic teals and blues of the monastery, rich gold edging the sash around his chest. The man was wearing a blindfold; it too was the blue and gold of the monastery. 

He tilted his head back against the pillow before nodding. “I am.” 

“My name is Mascon. I helped heal you.” 

“Mascon.” He shut his eyes. Opened them again. He should introduce himself in return, but didn't quite feel like it. “How long have I been down?” 

Mascon hummed. A warmth spread through the previous aches and settled eventually into a cool tingle. He recognized it as healing magic, though not of the Magistrate. He should have guessed as much. “Two days. You were... very hurt.” Mascon brought his hand down and the tingle faded. “But you are also very strong.”

Mascon smiled again. His buoyant optimism did little to help, but it lightened the mood. 

“What's your name?” Mascon asked him. He leaned over and offered a hand to sit up. Grasping with fingers around Mascon's wrist, he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bunk. 

His name. Right. The introduction had to come at some point. Digging through his memories-- memories? Blood, dirt, being lifted and thrown, _pain_ , a soft blue light and a soothing voice, more pain, bitter loyalty and bitter betrayal, the sun crawling to the zenith of the sky directly above the Peak and the heat of it on him, his armor like a cage, _nothing_. He licked his lips and swallowed. His throat hurt. He shut his eyes briefly, squeezed them shut. The right side of his face pinched strangely with the motion and he lifted a hand to feel. What he felt made him whimper, tiny and broken. He'd been hurt before and he had scars, plenty of them, but this was huge. It started at his temple and streaked down his cheek, through his lips and chin, a divot in his flesh and still tender.

Mascon put a hand on his shoulder. Trying to be soothing?

“I'm sorry. I did my best, but...” His voice trailed off. “It had already started healing by itself.” 

He pressed his hand against his cheek and hunched his shoulders. No use getting upset about it, though he was. 

Name. Right.

 _Name_.

Nothing. 

“Zenith,” he said, in lieu of anything else, and figured that good enough. A lofty goal to work towards. 

“Alright,” Mascon replied, voice still soft. Like he _knew_. Zenith wanted to snap at him but the urge faded and just left him feeling miserable. “Zenith.”

It sounded odd, didn't sound like him. He'd get used to it, he _had_ to. 

“I'm not going to ask you to make any decisions yet-- but let me show you around.”


	4. Stars Too Are Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I have no interest in entertaining gods who stay cloistered among the stars. I deal in flame.” Furia stretched her wings out to show the glittering edge of each feather, as if they had been dragged through shards of crystal, each one reflecting back light. A pity the display was missed on the blind monk; he had to have some way of seeing her, though, or otherwise he would have walked right by her in favor of the roaring Pyre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ffFFFFFURIA  
> These are supposed to be, what, 500 words at the most? This one grew legs and ran away from me. Also, hello Furia! You're hard for me to write.   
> more Mascon. he's just such a good sounding board...

“I have no interest in entertaining gods who stay cloistered among the stars. I deal in flame.” Furia stretched her wings out to show the glittering edge of each feather, as if they had been dragged through shards of crystal, each one reflecting back light. A pity the display was missed on the blind monk; he had to have some way of seeing her, though, or otherwise he would have walked right by her in favor of the roaring Pyre. 

“Stars too are fire,” the monk responded. Furia felt no reproach or impudence in his reply, nor challenge, though truthfully it would not surprise her-- mortals so fervently leapt to defend that which they were loyal to. But not so bravely with _her_ , and that in itself made the monk's reply impressive. It still demanded a swift rebuttal. 

“Are they eternal? No. Stars gutter out and die eventually, as do mortals. You would do well to remember that.”

She could sense the monk thinking, seeking something to say that would both avoid offending her and avoid making himself-- and his monastery-- look weak. 

“If my light is to die, I should strive to shine as brightly as I can.” 

Furia's feathers ruffled as she settled her wings against her back. His words found approval. “You're either bold, or foolhardy. Speak, then. Why have you come?” 

The monk nodded, a brief and sure gesture. “You stand against the Abyss. We fight a less ethereal foe.” The Magistrate. Furia knew well enough, held her own grudges, but her duty was now against the Abyss. Her scruples had risen above. It was lucky, then, that mortals had not, and remained locked in endless war. The monk held what could generously be considered eye contact-- the blindfold, and yet there was some sort of sight that she couldn't sense-- and knelt. Perhaps he knelt before his god. It was fitting that he should kneel before her. “I've come to ask for your blessing.” 

“And why should I give it? I do not share my blessing with pilgrims, or missionaries, or monks. I share it with warriors. Those who seek to protect and purify.” It wasn't an insult, not really, but callous and blunt enough to be taken as one. Furia didn't care much either way. He'd taken everything else with measured calm. Perhaps she wasn't frightening to him. In darkness, any light saw welcome. 

“Anyone can become a warrior when the need arises.” 

“Lofty words.” 

“I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it.” 

Furia waited to see if he would continue, try to convince her of his willingness to fight or his prowess. He didn't, just patiently waited for her to measure the worth of his words and intention. It was fun, perhaps, to test the monk and in turn watch him pass each test. 

“I carry the flame of the Eternal Pyre within me. I will examine your soul itself, and if you carry any duplicity it will incinerate you,” she declared, rather grandly. This was the part where others quailed and looked away. The monk didn't even nod.

“I understand.” 

He finally looked down, submitting himself to her-- the Pyre's-- judgement. Perhaps she had been misleading. The Pyre could not truly incinerate someone because of the darkness of their soul; all souls returned to the flame eventually. Furia was the judge. She decided who was worthy.

This monk, if not worthy, was bold and a fierce sort of earnest, and anybody who stood against the Magistrate was on her side if only nominally. Furia held out her hand and funneled a small portion of the fire onto his back, where it caught against his skin and clothes and flickered until it covered all of him. It hurt. She knew it did, even if it wouldn't actually hurt him-- did the exact opposite. Wear from the road disappeared under a tide of flame and an injury at the back of his neck sealed up. His shoulders shook but he stayed silent, head dropping nearly to his chest, breaths slow and forcefully calm. The fire eventually migrated from the rest of his body to his back again, wisping up into the air and finally dissipating. 

“That is my blessing.” She kept her voice firm. The flame of the Pyre was a heavy burden to bear, even as a blessing. Even as a help. Only those truly desperate for it would submit to the fire. 

The monk took a moment to center himself before he replied. “You have my thanks, and I am in your debt.” 

Furia nearly scoffed, but however she wished to say that only mortals dallied on the field of debts having a follower of Jenos beholden to her, if only for a single favor, was unequivocally a good thing. Against the Abyss, she needed all the allies she could recruit or conscript. “Then keep it in mind, and whenever the Pyre next calls for aid I expect you to lend yourself. Now begone.”


	5. Until I Get Tired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bandits fall to the ground with the dull thud of flesh on dirt. Xadi has to admit, she kind of likes it—bashing people with her shield, watching them dive from the scythe of her sword. They had it coming. She leans down to pluck a pouch of coin from one of them and put it in her own belt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feat. the beautiful [XADI](http://silver-s-blog.tumblr.com/post/174950893614) & more mascon, who really should know better by now about bandits.

The bandits fall to the ground with the dull thud of flesh on dirt. Xadi has to admit, she kind of likes it—bashing people with her shield, watching them dive from the scythe of her sword. They had it coming. She leans down to pluck a pouch of coin from one of them and put it in her own belt.

She hadn't taken them all down to steal from them, though. In the corner of the camp a man dressed in blues and whites kneels with his arms tied behind his back. The long, flared head of a monk's spade pokes out from behind him.

“I'm going to cut you out,” she says, and walks behind him to do so. He nods—he’s been quiet the whole time with his eyes shut as if in meditation. The ropes fall off at the slightest touch of her blade, sliced through easily. The monk holds very still for her until the ropes puddle over his ankles. 

“Thank you. I'm not very good at being a captive,” the monk says brightly. He rubs at his wrists, smiles, folds his legs underneath himself and stands. She hadn't offered her hand though perhaps she should have; it can't have been pleasant or comfortable to kneel there for however long. 

“Don't thank me,” she says back-- almost snaps. “It was the right thing to do." 

He simply shrugs. “I am grateful, nonetheless.”

She doesn't know whether to look at him or not look at him as he's so carefully not looking at her. He's kept his eyes closed the entire time, actually, even after she cut him out. Hurt? Incapable? She doesn't ask. 

He unties a strip of fabric from around his throat that she'd originally taken to be a scarf, or a collar. He wraps it and ties it as a blindfold instead. 

Ah.

Only then does he turn to look at her, still smiling, appearing no worse for the wear.

“May I walk with you until we're out of here? I appear to have misjudged the atmosphere.” 

If he got hurt again so soon after her saving his ass, that would just be sad. She huffed a little bit. “Where are you going?” 

“As far as I can go before I get tired. Where are you going?” 

Alright, that makes her laugh. _Monks_. He's not a pilgrim, or he'd give her a destination. An adventurer? He doesn't seem the adventuring type. “Same as you, actually.”

“So I suppose this makes us traveling partners for the time being?” He leans down and picks up his spade. How does he know where it is? Xadi wrinkles her nose.

But, still. Saved him. Better not do it again, and she’s getting kind of lonely on the road all alone.

“Sure.”


	6. In Good Standing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vivian, who thrives in chaos and split-second decisions, and Nadir, who has the art of planning a battle down to the minute to a science. They get along, kind of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for galpaladinsoftherealm pride week day one!

“I wouldn't take a step further.” 

Nadir's shoulders prickled. She stopped, though, heeding the austere, clipped tone coming to her from behind the wall. “You thought I would betray you.” The soft beeping of a sensor drone, the ones she was familiar with, often dissected and picked apart on her table, reached her and she realized she was in range. Smart. She had to pass through this chokepoint, and now she was paying for it.

“It’s not betrayal if we’re not allies,” Vivian dismissed. “Simply covering all my bases.”

“Just as well. I expected a trap.”

“It’s not a trap. It’s just insurance.”

“You don’t trust me,” Nadir stated, too matter-of-fact to be a taunt or offended.

“I trust you to do whatever it takes to win.”

“And it apparently involves trusting you, so if I were you I’d get to the point before I decide I’d rather take my chances with your drone,” Nadir said, voice still clipped and flat. She hadn’t expected _levity_. Vivian sighed, less truly resigned and more in agreement that their posturing had gotten them nowhere except frustrated.

“Well, here we are. Two soldiers before a war.” Vivian didn't take her weapons off of lay them down; Nadir didn't either. There was a certain level of wariness-- they were both too dangerous-- and respect-- they both knew as much-- in the gesture of clinging to weaponry. Nadir didn't have much choice, she reminded herself. The slow pulse of the booby-trapped sensor drone whined softly. Nadir didn't dare shake her head.

“I rather say we're in the alcoves of it.” 

“Watching it happen? No. In the saddle.” Vivian kept her SMG pointed at Nadir. The tactician blinked slowly in the only gesture of incredulity she could make without the drone exploding.

“I would only steer it to a faster end. And,” Nadir continued, “What I mean is that we're invested in the bigger picture, not just the day-to-day survival your side has been reduced to.” 

“They are as much my side as they are yours. If I were truly loyal, you would be dead and Jenos would be down a good soldier.” Vivian said _good soldier_ as most people would say _snakebite_. Nadir smiled, much in the same way. 

“And yet your drone is still up.”

“I’m loyal enough to look it,” she responded, smiling back. Enough dancing around, talking circles around each other. It was wasting time, if not getting boring.

“Why did you call me here? Are you—.”

“I'm not defecting,” Vivian cut in preemptively. “I would look terrible in blue, and I have use for the Magistrate's resources yet. I have information for you…”


	7. Guns Blazing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, Mascon knew that Guntown was Guntown and people from there tended to have quick trigger fingers and even quicker tempers. They burned hot, burned bright, and when they burned out— they blew up. Mascon, though he had been firmly on her side for this scuffle, still felt rather crispy. “Uh,” he said, intelligently, clutching his spade as if it would protect him from confusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie belongs to zombaygal. Mascon is mine, and he is following in the proud tradition of being scared/saved by badass ladies.  
> i love spaghetti westerns

“Whoo-ey! That was a blowout.” She brushed her hair behind her shoulder, gun still smoking. “Me and Clyde here haven’t had a rodeo like that in ages!”

Now, Mascon knew that Guntown was Guntown and people from there tended to have quick trigger fingers and even quicker tempers. They burned hot, burned bright, and when they burned out— they blew up. Mascon, though he had been firmly on her side for this scuffle, still felt rather crispy. “Uh,” he said, intelligently, clutching his spade as if it would protect him from confusion.

“Yeah, you weren't too bad yourself!” She slapped him on the back. He would have stumbled forward, but he was made of sterner stuff than that, even stunned into motionlessness.

“Uh?” He said, again, and then cast out with his mark to find Clyde. He didn’t. It was just him, the gunman—gunwoman—and the tiny bits of ‘low-down dirty rustlers’. Dead. Oh, Void, they were _dead_.

She finally seemed to notice that he wasn’t in the shape to reply anything coherent any time soon. A pale veil of astral energy bunched around her, parting and flowing like she was pushing her way through a stream, outlining the bunched contours of her belts and the sharp edges of her hat, just as much a feeling as a visual. She put a hand on his shoulder.

“Nobody stays dead in this damn town, bucko. They’ll be back.”

Somehow, he wanted to argue that he was here to make sure that didn’t happen again, but she could very easily do to him what she’d done to them. He nodded tersely and finally let go of the spade with his other hand, swinging it out to the side as he normally held it.

“Clyde?” He asked, finally.

“My gun!” She held up _Clyde_ proudly. He really should have known.

“Oh. Actually, about what you said earlier?”

She scratched her neck. “Rodeo?”

“Uh, no. People not staying dead. I’m…” He held up his hand, gestured with the spade. “I can do something about that?”

She hummed. “Normally, I just blow ‘em up until they stop coming back!”

She laughed, the kind of laugh that welled up in her chest and came out as a bark. “Name’s Bonnie. What about you? You—“ she shoved him again, not unkindly, and tugged at the draping tails of fabric pinned to his chest. “Don’t look like a regular around these parts.”

“Mascon. I’m not, actually. I’m one of Jenos’.”

“Huh,” Bonnie said, her time to be confused. She seemed to get over it quickly enough, brightening and straightening and tugging at his sash again. “So, you say you can keep these buggers down? I’ve been chasing them for weeks, and they never get out of my hair—well, sometimes they do, but it takes a wash.” She laughed again. Mascon was, abruptly, glad she saw him as an ally.

“ _So_ , normally, when people get blown up, they don’t come back. Something bigger is at play here…”


	8. Handy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zenith makes friends with a revenant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyone who can guess where our lovely revenant comes from gets a free drabble. I took many, many liberties with him...

The man looks down and finally notices he's missing a hand. Zenith holds it by the thumb, letting it hang. He takes his cues from the man's reaction to all of this; he's quiet, but not the empty and blank sort of quiet that comes from shock, more an unsurprised acknowledgement. He doesn't seem worried, so--

Zenith isn't either. 

“Need a hand?” 

That gets a laugh. A bark, and then a wheeze, the man going to slap his leg and spectacularly missing. 

“Yeah. Pass it here,” he says after a moment, more composed that how he was seconds ago but still light and wheezy with laughter. He has features that would look more at home in a painting than in the open air, eyes that burn and twist. Kindled, Zenith thinks, by the fight. He'd enjoyed it. They both had. 

“What is it-- how?” Zenith says, stammers, because he didn't expect the man to say _yes_.

“No, it's okay. I'm mostly held together by magic now.” He sounds so _sure_ of it. Zenith passes back the hand-- clammy and weighty-- and the man presses it to the open wound at his wrist. Faint purple light shines at the seam and the flesh seals it back together, leaving only a thin purple line where the injury was. Zenith stares unabashed; if this was private, he'd be told to look away. It's somehow familiar. He'd say it was the power of the Abyss-- not the Void, and deeper than it-- but he'd never seen it like this. 

Sewing things back together, knitting flesh, sealing wounds-- the strange violet markings Zenith originally took to be tattoos took on a new meaning. The boy changed from a haphazard arrangement of tattoos to a patchwork collection of a thousand battles. Five deaths across his throat at the least, a stark and terrible Y-shaped engraving down his chest as if someone had cut him open and pulled him apart by the ribs, countless other nicks crisscrossing his body. 

“Impressive,” Zenith says before he can stop himself. “What should I call you?”

“You can call me Dead Boy. Everybody else does,” the man-- boy-- says cheerfully. A strike across his cheek that should have bruised him sits there menacingly but instead it's just a long, clean cut, no oozing blood. Zenith says something that isn't words and has to gather the rounded edges of his intention again, shake his head a little bit, and speak properly.

“Dead Boy? That's morbid.” He means it, but is saying it more to say it. He hasn't introduced himself yet and he _really_ should. 

“Well, it's not wrong.” The boy shakes his head and shrugs, the very picture of resigned. 

The other monks will have been drawn by the ruckus. Zenith nods his head and forces himself to collect the jumbled thoughts he has no use for and shove them away-- and suddenly, he's a soldier again, the brief and awkward interlude between the end of the skirmish and now inconsequential. 

“My name is Zenith. I'm one of the gate guards for the Tau-Kor Monastery, and if you've come here to put some distance between yourself and the Magistrate you've come to the right place.” 


	9. Caging the Scorpion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I am only beaten,” Jenos said, something near distaste but not quite in his voice, “because I want to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> silver tagged me in [a prompt](http://silver-s-blog.tumblr.com/post/176413504834) and i felt spiritually called to write something for it

“I am only beaten,” Jenos said, something near distaste but not quite in his voice, “because I want to be.”

Khan should have been angry and perhaps with anyone else he would be; as Lian's most trusted advisor and strategist, her _general_ , he knew a thing or two about when someone was _beaten_. Separated from his followers and center of power seemed beaten enough for a mortal. 

Jenos was no mortal. For that reason, Khan believed him. 

“Then why are you here?” Khan asked, more goading than sincerely curious. Jenos met his covered stare evenly. The light spilling from his mask lit up the room, miniature stars spinning wildly around his head like a halo, blinking into existence and dying in tiny, spectacular displays of light. The cuffs around Jenos' wrists suddenly seemed less than adequate, even though Jenos hadn't fought against them at all.

“I would not lead my followers into disaster.” 

Khan resisted the urge to puff up. A god admitting that fighting his army was folly? Glorious. He'd report that back to Lian. Jenos wasn't done. “I would not abandon them.”

The cuffs began to melt. Beads of molten metal dripped down Jenos' hands and arms, vaporizing in short order. His hands were glowing, blue and white, a brilliant display of heat and power that Khan now realized he could have done at any time. 

But why now?

His question was answered in short order as noise exploded outside the tent. It had to be at least a hundred voices howling for blood-- if not blood, justice, and for the first time in this whole affair Khan felt fear. 

“And they would not abandon me,” Jenos continued, though he did not need to. The clash of weapons joined the human clamor and screaming took a pained edge. 

“They will deal with your army.” Now, with the cover of night and the advantage of surprise, Khan knew they could. He reached for his gun but the movement was arrested as quickly as it had started; Jenos was smiling now in the languid, easy way of a relaxing predator. Khan's armor felt tight and hot around him, the drag of celestial energy pulling him closer. Crushing. It didn't hurt yet. 

“And I will deal with you.” 


	10. Hide nor Hare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I am the corrupted one?” Androxus was-- not holding him, not really, but letting him slump against his side. This body was done for. Something in the bullets ate away at the cohesiveness of it-- this far away from the Peak, he couldn't save it. Slowly, he started the process of leeching his consciousness from the dying shell to the stars above. As it should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ehehehehehehe

The whole world seemed dark like this. Jenos could not truly bleed, not as a being of light and not as a piece of the cosmos. Still, the wavering edges of his torn clothes-- ripped through by bullets, not the easily-ignored bullets of men but the true, painful wounds of something darker. If only it found home in something more consequential than the barely-corporeal form Jenos favored for matters of this nature.

Trivial, usually, but for this he allowed himself to become fully invested.

It hurt. His midsection burned and twisted. Brightness sparked in his field of vision against the sheet of Androxus' mask and the darkness of his cloak, the pinpricks of stars in the sky, the spears of moonlight from the gaps in thick clouds. Bruised, the color of a rainstorm that hasn't started yet.

“That is the nature of godhood,” Androxus replied. “It twists and corrupts. Nobody should hold such power.”

“I am the corrupted one?” Androxus was-- not holding him, not really, but letting him slump against his side. This body was done for. Something in the bullets ate away at the cohesiveness of it-- this far away from the Peak, he couldn't save it. Slowly, he started the process of leeching his consciousness from the dying shell to the stars above. As it should be.

Divinity.

“A soul cannot hold the cosmos.”

Androxus looked down at his body; always cool and thrumming with power but now a more frigid type of cold, still and fading. Jenos saw it from all angles, from the uncomfortable sprawl of his body as it stopped supporting itself, the slight bow of Androxus' head as he lowered the body from his side to the ground. The glow surrounding the body, as it had when Jenos properly inhabited it, faded. Divinity, Jenos thought again, consciousness free from pain again. The cosmos felt much more pain than a bullet could give, and over time Jenos learned to absorb all of it. The bright, searing flare of a star going supernova; the celestial keen of a star burning out into nothing; the ravenous howl of a black hole. He was not a part of it so much as it was a part of him, a vast consciousness spanning lightyears.

And Androxus tried to kill him.

A God.

Godslayer he may be, but Jenos knew as well as anybody that so long as there was a star left in the sky he would return. He spoke again, fully severing ties with the motionless body at Androxus' knees, speaking instead through the puddles of moonlight on his shoulders. On the ground. In columns of silver through the clouds. All around, no longer a voice so much as a whisper.

“If you no longer had a soul, you would not regret losing it.”

Androxus didn't bother twisting to find the source of the voice. Jenos couldn't smile anymore, had to construct a new body for that and he didn't have the time, but he was sure his amusement traveled.

“Hunt me again, Godslayer.” Perhaps it was a challenge. An invitation. Jenos certainly hoped Androxus would take it that way; this was the most fun he'd had in eons. “I enjoy it.”

He pulled away from the scene and let his last tenuous grasp on his body recede. It faded into nothing, leaving not even an imprint of itself on the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment or a kudos if you enjoyed!


End file.
